The Power of Resilience: Achieve Anything with Grit with Bedros Keuilian

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert, and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace.

Hey, I'm Amberly Lago. Welcome back to another episode of True Grit and Grace. Today on the show, I have Bedros Koulian, who is a legend in the fitness industry, a legend in the coaching industry. He's really been— I'm fangirling right now, but I'm a huge fan. This is a dream come true. I know you don't say yes to everything. You don't say yes to a lot of things. So the fact that you are here, I'm in your studio, means the world to me.

Well, thanks.

CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp along with supplement lines. I mean, entrepreneurial mindset. You're known as the genius, like the secret weapon to so many companies and big brands. So I am so grateful to have you here and have some time to really get started with your story because it's so inspiring.

Well, first off, thank you, Amberly. And secondly, I think it was Craig Ballantine who said, man, you're the genius behind all the big names, successful names in the industry. And you don't really keep tally, but over time you realize, holy crap, like New York Times bestselling authors, NFL champions, Navy SEALs, like I've coached them all. And you name the blue check mark, I've probably taught them how to run a mastermind or coaching program. And it's just been a neat thing. But also, when you've got nearly 20 years under your belt, you're going to rack up some accolades. So I'm just very grateful for that.

Well, your story is probably the most inspiring American business story I've ever heard. I mean, you were a communist. Now you're like a successful capitalist.

Mm-hmm.

People come to you to learn how to scale their businesses and increase their sales. And, but I would love to share how you got started because your story, you moved here so young and you went from like dumpster diving for food to this beautiful business that you have now. So could you share a little bit about your younger days, how you started as a kid and how you moved out here? And I know it's important that your dad said share how we really became Americans. That's important to him. So if you could share a little bit about that, I would love that.

Yeah, and I appreciate you for allowing that, and thank you for doing the research, by the way. And one thing that my dad always does say, he says, hey, whatever stage you're on, whatever publication you're published in, whatever TV show, whatever you're on, He doesn't really understand what podcasts are, so he just calls them TV shows.

My mom doesn't either.

I've probably been on a small handful of TV shows, but he says, explain how we ended up here in the United States, because, you know, as you kind of qualified the show by saying like, hey, you're a former communist turned capitalist, it was a communist not by choice. And so we come from the Soviet Union, specifically Armenia, And my dad was a member of the Communist Party. Again, not by choice, even though they give you a choice and say, hey, would you like to be a member? If you say no, you end up getting shipped off to Siberia, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so in 1973, a year before I was born, he became an official member of the Communist Party. About 18% of the population are members of the Communist Party. And so as he was a member of the Communist Party, he had liberties and access in that communist state that the average citizen in the Soviet Union didn't. So you can imagine we lived a better life than the average citizen throughout the Soviet Union. Even then, my dad would listen to the Beach Boys and Elvis, and he would wear Jordache jeans, and I remember he had Adidas shoes. He was very westernized. Like, the man was just—

And was that okay to wear that kind of stuff?

He would buy it on the black market.

Okay.

And it was okay to wear it, especially if you're a member of the Communist Party. You kind of— no one's gonna ask you.

Okay.

Because he had the ability to walk into any store and audit the place.

Wow.

Anyone that was a member of the— so it's really weird. In every town, there'll be a certain number of party members who have this red passport that signifies that you're a Communist Party member, and that if you feel that particular store is maybe doing something shady, selling stuff under the table and pocketing the cash, because remember, all businesses were owned by the motherland, right? And so my dad and other Communist Party members could go and audit. He never once did that. He would leave his little passport at home, and my older brother would take that and go to all these places and pretty much, hey, I'm gonna audit you guys if you don't give me flowers. And then he'd take the flowers and give it to his girlfriend and get into trouble.

Wow. And how old was your brother when he was doing that?

My brother is 14 years older than me, so at the time he was in his teens while I was just a little puppy.

And, um, so he was a smart kid, wasn't he?

Yeah, he'd get free taxi rides. Like, wow, that gets you a lot of privileges. It's like being an A-list celebrity here, right?

Like, imagine. Or, you know, my husband is a retired lieutenant commander, and our first date we went on, we got pulled over and we got out of that ticket.

There you go.

Yeah, I mean, right?

So there's—

he's retired now, I can say that kind of stuff, right?

You wouldn't say it if he wasn't retired. And so in 1980, my dad decided that we're going to escape. And the plan was to make it look like we're going to Italy for a vacation, 'cause Italy is communist sympathizers. And so just 2 suitcases and a family of 5. I was 6 years old. My brother at the time was 19. My sister was 22.

So did you have to make it look like your house was left intentionally like you were coming back?

Yes.

Wow.

And of course, we can only take 2 suitcases to make it look like we're just going on a little vacation.

You were just going to short trip.

Yeah. And we'd just take a train ride.

That's crazy.

Yeah. And, and so in fact, my mom had made a list. She just told me this a few months ago. She had made a list of— to all her kind of siblings and my aunts and uncles. Once we're gone, you guys get these pots and pans, you guys get these beddings, you guys get the silverware. But until we're free and clear into Italy, like, do not touch anything in the apartment.

Wow.

We got a nice apartment there. So we get to Italy, and it took us about 10 days to go to the American consulate and for my dad to say, look, I'm a member of the Communist Party. I denounce communism. You can pump me for any information you want. We would like to enter the United States legally. And so we legally, on June 16th, 1980, we legally entered the United States. And he had chose California simply because—

So you were like 6 years old?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, we chose California because it's a warm state, and of course living in the Soviet Union, especially Armenia, it's very cold and snowy. So all he knew was California was a warm state, and so we chose California. So we had about $250 in our pocket, 2 suitcases, didn't understand the language, didn't speak the culture, and very quickly had to assimilate. And so, yeah, sometimes when your dad finds— so he had a paper route by like the second day he had a paper route. By the fourth day he had a paper route and he was pumping gas. And he had discovered that there's a grocery store that's got this giant dumpster in the back of it, and they throw away food that's expired but hasn't necessarily gone bad yet. Or maybe the bread has some mold on it, but you can pick off the mold and eat the bread. And so I became the breadwinner because I was the smallest one in the family, and he would kind of lift me up into the dumpster and I'd pull out like a head of lettuce that was rotted, but if you peel off all those lettuce leaves, there is a fresh little head of lettuce under there. Milk that was expired but hadn't soured yet.

Yeah.

Right. And so that's how we lived. And then we later moved into Section 8 housing, which is government-assisted housing that has its own stories. But—

Well, did you feel as a kid like, was that just normal for you or did you think, well, this, this, I'm being loaded? Like, there were things in my childhood that I thought that was normal. That's what everybody did. And looking back, I'm like, that was so Not normal. At the time, did you think, or were you proud that like, I'm the breadwinner of the family, I'll get y'all food?

I was happy that I was able to help because my brother and sister all went out and got jobs the best they could, you know, washing dishes, etc. And so I felt like at least that's my contribution because I could hear the conversation in the house. And now I'm so aware, my kids are now 13 and 15, but when they were smaller, I was like, man, these kids are listening.

Oh yeah.

I was listening, and I would hear my dad always gripe about how we run out of money before we run out of month, and he has to make a decision whether we're gonna have electricity or water the remainder of the month until he gets his next check. And so for me, I knew that we were in a place where we were not liked because I would hear people yell at them and say, go back to your own effing country, you foreigners, you're taking all our jobs. You could imagine I felt helpless. I wanted to— I remember feeling I wanted to do something, but what are you going to do when you're 6, 7, 8 years old? And so I would see my dad get in fistfights with people in the apartment complexes that we lived in. My brother would get into fistfights with people because it's just— you resort to violence when you are getting bullied and picked on constantly. And so I felt like that was my contribution. At least I get to fish out food out of a dumpster.

But also, I I don't remember if I heard it in your book. I love your book, by the way.

Thank you.

I read it and I also have it on Audible and I'd be listening to your book and my husband would be like, you're still at the grocery store? And I'd be like, oh, I'm really in the car listening to your book.

Thank you.

Um, so it's really— but I don't know if I remember this from your book or another interview I heard you on, that there were some times in your living, You know, in apartments that there were no children allowed. So you would have to hide or be evicted. So you must have— did it not ever feel safe as a kid for you? Did you have a safe place where you felt like you could, like, thrive or be yourself or comfortable?

Nope.

No. Nope. And That builds resiliency in you later on. In the moment, it creates a lot of fight or flight. It creates a lot of fear. Having to be whisked out before the sun comes up and people in the apartment complex start milling around, and then literally being in a kitchen of a pizzeria where your dad talked the pizzeria owner to allow you to come there after school because you can't go home because it's daytime.

Yeah.

And so my dad was busing tables, and then when it would get dark and people weren't milling around, 8, 9 o'clock PM, then he'd whisk me into the apartment complex. And then when they would find it— so back then in the '80s, they had apartment complexes that said no kids, no pets. And anyone who's old enough— I'm 46— would remember that. And so I think later on, years later, it was one of those things where, hey, you can't discriminate against kids, and so you can't do that, and that went away. But in those times, there was apartments that were no kids, no pets, and some of those were cheaper. And so my parents would lie and say, hey, we don't have any young kids, they're all older. And so they'd kind of sneak me in, and then we'd get evicted, and I felt— I would feel horrible because we got kicked out because of me.

Oh.

And so no, there wasn't that much safety, security, comfort, whatever, predictability. I mean, I went to 3 elementary schools, 2 junior highs, 2 high schools. But when you fast forward through into, into my life, I realize all of that uncertainty and adversity built so much resilience in me that I use today, that I just used last year getting through the COVID virus as the CEO of an international fitness franchise, right? And my ability to like, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to let this thing kill me. But yeah, my childhood wasn't the best.

Yeah, there is something else that we have in common that I was like so Actually, I heard you in an interview and I was crying because I was like, oh my gosh, our stories parallel so much. That I was sexually abused by my stepfather. And I remember the first time I went to therapy and I talked about it and the therapist was like, have you dealt with it? And I was like, oh yeah, I've dealt with that. They're like, well, have you done this, this, or this? I'm like, oh no, but I've dealt with it. And my way of dealing with it was I just became extra good at being an overachiever.

Hmm.

I became a workaholic. I had a successful business. I became the best runner. I set a track record in the state of Texas for running the fastest mile because when I did things that made me feel like a winner, I felt better. So, I just ran faster. And I didn't realize that I was running away from shame, and anger and all these emotions through everything that I was doing until I couldn't run anymore. And I was stuck in a hospital bed and it all caught up to me.

Yeah.

And that was, you know, I was 38 years old and I'm like, I'm just now dealing with this. And I know that you shared in an interview that you were also, you had some sexual abuse as a kid. And I really want to say thank you for sharing that because There's not a lot of men that will be so brave to talk about that, especially men that are big and buff like you, that are successful entrepreneurs. And so I appreciate you sharing that, but I was wondering if you could share how you got through that trauma so others that are listening might go, oh my God, that happened to me too. How did he get through that?

Well, I mean, very similar to you. I thought I had dealt with it. I thought I had dealt with it. For you, it was at 38. For me, it was at 37 years old when I had a massive anxiety attack. And in the book, I talk about— I say, well, I said this thing happened, my first heart attack. I thought I was having a heart attack because I'd never had an anxiety attack before. But in hindsight, it had finally caught up with me. And fast forward to back to Armenia between the ages of 4 and 6. I was molested by 2 older boys continually in the carports where we lived. You know, and you kind of disassociate.

Mm-hmm.

Anyone who's been sexually abused knows what it's like.

You—

your body's there, but you mentally go away when that's happening. And so once again, that served as a superpower as I got older, because when something was happening, I could disassociate from what's happening to handle what needs to be handled. And my way of dealing with it was just stuffing it away and keeping busy and distracting myself with work and avoiding and ignoring the signs.

Mm-hmm.

And soon those signs catch up, and for me, they caught up at the age of 37 in the form of an anxiety attack, which I thought was a heart attack because From everything I had learned about heart attacks, your arms tingle, or an arm tingles, and my heart's beating, and I'm sweating, Amberly, and I couldn't figure out why, 'cause it's early in the morning, and it's not a hot day. And I'm in my guest house looking for my tennis shoes that I left there the night before, and it was like tunnel vision, and I can't see the peripheral. I'm like, holy crap, this is how I die, right? Thinking I'm having a heart attack. And I remember thinking to myself, Not like I'm worried about dying. I just felt so sad for Andrew, Chloe, and Diana. Who's gonna teach Andrew to be a modern-day knight? And who's gonna who's gonna walk Chloe down the aisle? And doggone it, I I made a promise to die that I would protect her. And who's gonna protect her now, right? And so my the weird part of my brain that didn't want to cause any more trauma for my family was like, all right, dude. If you die here in the guest house, which my guest house was across the pool deck up on the second floor above my garage, and my family. They probably thought I'd gone to work. So I'm like, dude, if you die here in the guest house, they're not gonna find you till late tonight. And who knows, rigor mortis has set in, your body's all bloated and you're discolored, and your kids are gonna see this and they're gonna panic, right? It's the last sight of Dad.

Oh.

And so my strategy was I'm gonna somehow find my way down the staircase and hopefully die by the pool deck so that my wife will see me through the French doors and they'll at least see me as normal as possible. And, of course, as I go down the staircase, I don't know if it was the fresh air or the movement, all the symptoms went away.

Hmm.

And, I'm just left in a sweat, this sweaty puddle. I'm like, I think I just dodged a heart attack bullet. And, off to work I went. Well, I later found out it was an anxiety attack and I had more of those. And so, the doctor's like, dude, your heart's fine, but you've got to deal with this stress and anxiety that you have from work. And, it was right around about 2 or 3 years after I launched Fit Body Boot Camp as a franchise. You can imagine the workload was severe. But really, it was unprocessed trauma that caught up to me. And so, they put me on Xanax, and of course, Xanax was just killing my creativity. So I'm like, I'm not doing this. I go, hey, doc, what's my other option? He goes, talk therapy. I'm like, I'm not broken. I don't need this.

Mm-hmm.

A therapist can help you get over your anxiety and your, you know, stress management, et cetera. Great, let's do it. So I meet a guy. His name is Kevin. Within 4 sessions, he teaches me That anxiety is anticipation of future pain, that action alleviates anxiety.

I was doing push-ups before we started.

They're like—

I said, you don't mind if I do some push-ups? Because I was like nervous before we started. And so I got down to do some push-ups, and it does, yeah. But it only gets you so far, right? You got to deal with the—

Right. And so about 4 sessions in, he's like— Kevin's given me all these tools to deal with my stress and anxiety, and so I'm dealing with them. And at the end of that 4th session, I was like, Kevin, haven't felt any sense of anxiety or stress, so thank you, job well done, off I go. In those 4 weeks, he had built such rapport with me that during that last session, he goes, hey, Bedros, is there anything else we need to talk about? You know, your family, your parents? I'm like, nope, everything was fine there, Kevin. I go, plus, you know, I come from a family where, you know, communists, you know, they, they, I was never put on restriction.

Mm-hmm.

Like, my dad would slap me around and beat me, and then I can go out and play again. And I go, however, Kevin, what happened to me before that as a kid was even worse than my dad slapping me around. For some reason, I just forfeited that information that I'd never shared with anyone.

You had never shared that with anyone?

Never. And so—

Wow.

And so Kevin's like, what happened? And I just was— I'm standing at the doorway of his office at the end of my 4th session with him, and I just started bawling, and I'm crying, right? And I'm like, shit, why did I share this? Why did I give this up? Well, clearly, subconsciously, I'm asking for help, right? In hindsight. And so here I am squirming in my chair. So obviously I still need to talk about this more.

But it's really hard to talk about. And I remember, you know, thank goodness you had a safe place to talk about it. I remember I told my first husband, was like the first person I told. And when we were going through a divorce, he actually told my mom. And my mom didn't know. And it was the best thing to happen because then my mom went and punched my stepdad. She came out to California. And then when she got back home, he was gone, never to be seen again. He left. And all those years I thought he would deny it or something like that. But it's good that you had a safe place to share.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I guess because I felt safe with him, I trusted him. We spent the next 16 months. Every doggone Monday, Joan there would set up my Monday appointments at 6 o'clock. So I'd leave HQ at 5 and drive over there and we'd do the deep dive and work through the shame, the rage, the confusion, feeling unlovable, broken, and worked through it for 16 months. And then one day at a speaking event, and I was supposed to speak about leadership of all things, And, uh, Tony Robbins is up on stage ahead of me. It was actually the Genius Network event, Joe Polish's event. Tony Robbins is on stage. I'm in the back of the ballroom getting mic'd up, nervous as heck because—

Well, I mean, you're going on after—

Right?

Oh my God.

The man's got like hands like mittens and he's just like clapping and he's got the audience on fire.

Oh my God.

I'm like, first of all, Joe Polish is a jerk for putting me on after him.

Secondly— But you're amazing. I, I've seen you on stage and I was saying before we started that you are seriously like one of my favorite speakers in the world, not just on stage but off stage. You're the real deal. But who would ever want to follow him?

Nobody. So I get up on stage and, you know, I'm just like shouting out Tony like, hey man, wasn't he amazing? I was pumped up in the back, blah blah blah. And I'm like looking at the audience and I know that they're all millionaires who own businesses and I'm thinking these guys don't need— they can hire leaders just like I do. I have like 3 VPs in my company. Like, you know what, guys, we're not going to talk about leadership. Joe Polish, I hope you don't mind. I'm going to talk about the stuff that we really need to address, which is the traumas that we've experienced. Because everyone in here, 1 out of every 4 of you have had sexual abuse. 1 out of every 3 of you had emotional or mental abuse. And you could just see grown people squirming in their seats, uncomfortable.

I bet they all started scrolling on their phone at that point. They were like, eye contact and none.

No eye contact. Exactly. But it was the best. It was the first time I publicly talked about it. Um, 13 guys, including Dean Graziosi, came up to me. And Dean's a good, uh, good dear friend of mine. I like Dean. He's like, man, I've, I've gone through something like this before. I've never talked about it until recently. And so we just— it just helps for you to go, and you're normal too, Dean. Holy cow. Like, I really felt like there was this broken monster living inside me and that I'm not lovable. I'm Not supposed to experience love and safety and compassion, and that's all not true. And so anyways, I've dealt with it, and I think more people ought to cope with it, get past that trauma. And when you do, you begin to not self-sabotage anymore. You're not so like people around me were tense. I couldn't figure out why people around me were tense and walking on eggshells. It's because this energy I was putting off, and literally, like a year or two later, people hadn't seen me for a while. Like man, you look younger, you look lighter, you look like you're just like this. this different energy about you. I'm like, holy crap, I'm not holding the secret in, and I actually feel lovable. I'm worthy of love. I'm worthy of compassion. I'm worthy of care. I'm worthy of all of it. And, um, so it was a game changer for me. And if there's one thing I wish for people, it's that they— even though they thought that they dealt with it just like I did, all we did is just like push it aside.

Mm-hmm.

And we keep ourselves busy with creating more businesses and doing more things and distractions, but at some point—

Or trying to numb it out. I eventually, when I couldn't do the things that worked for me before, I would try to numb it out, and that got me into trouble. I thought, I'm not like all the other alcoholics in my family. I'm the fitness girl. Then I realized, oh wow, addiction doesn't discriminate. And if we don't deal with the trauma, it comes up and our lives and our businesses and our relationships. And so I think that for you, by dealing with it, you've become even more incredible leader for your, for your team. And now you show other businesses how to create leaders in their businesses and their teams on their brands. I mean, you coach some of the top people, top podcasters, top speakers, people that are out there. You're the genius, behind their businesses. And I think you talk about resilience, all that you have gone through, through your childhood, all the trauma that you've managed to work through, but you've really worked through it.

Yes.

And I think that's where some people just want to magically have transformation and sometimes don't realize it takes a lot of work. Like you said, you went to therapy.

Yeah.

And dealt with it. It's not easy. Therapy's draining. It takes a lot of energy.

You know this. Like, there were times I would walk out of his office and I would then sit in my truck for another hour, and then the rest of that week I felt like there was like this fog in my head while I'm walking through molasses. That's how I would describe it to people. Well, Joan and my wife, they were like the closest people to me that I knew that I was going to a therapist. And I would just say, well, I just— there's this fog in my head and I'm walking through molasses. That's the only way I could describe it. Everything's just heavy. And then 4 or 5 days after that session, I would have a breakthrough and I'd just feel lighter again, only to go back to Kevin on Monday and start digging deeper and then removing scabs and looking what's underneath and bringing things out of the shadows and into the light. And, oh, okay, look at that. Look, look how I show up when there's conflict because of this. Okay, let's address this.

Mm-hmm.

And we'd spend 2, 3, 4 weeks on that one thing. And, uh, but the most compelling thing Kevin did for me that I would be remiss if I didn't share here is that he gave me the first sentence and he said, I want you to write a letter to the to the six-year-old boy that you were when we came when you came to the United States. And he gave me the first sentence and the first sentence was between the ages of four and six in Armenia I was molested by two older boys but now I'm dot dot dot and then I got to write but now who I am and I had never really patted myself on the back or, or, or congratulated myself for these experiences that I've— in building businesses, getting on the Inc. list and on the Entrepreneur Magazine list 4 years in a row. And we're just on to the next one, on to the next one, on to the next one. And as I'm writing that, what ended up being a 13-page letter to that little boy of who he is now, it was so healing.

That makes me want to cry.

It was so healing. Highly recommend everyone try that.

Yeah. You know, it's funny. I had, um, uh, I've been sober by the grace of God for 5 years now. And I had my sponsor was like, I want you to write a leg, um, or leg. I want you to write a letter to your leg. And I'm like, you want me to write a letter to my leg? I didn't realize I had so much anger and stuff about that my leg didn't work properly, that it gave me so much pain. So I'm like, okay. I wrote the letter and I gave it to her and she read it and she was like, Oh my gosh, I didn't know words like that could come out of your mouth. You've got a lot of anger about your— I didn't know that it was in there. She goes, now I want you to write a different letter and acknowledge all that you can do. Like, gratitude is so big in my life. It has changed my life. It's really been alchemy. Just shifting your perspective and focusing on what you do have in your life instead of what you don't.

Right.

Has been transformative. But yes, writing a letter to your younger self or even parts of your body that you don't like much can really teach you to start to love yourself, your life more. So I love that. I wanted to ask you, I mean, we've been going through COVID and things have changed, and I know you wear a lot of different hats. So you coach people, especially leaders who are probably freaking out with COVID about what to, what, what to do next with their business. So I know you have that hat, you've got your nutritional stuff, but you've got your Fit Body Boot Camps. How many do you have? Like over 600? How many do you have?

Well, we had over 600 pre-COVID.

How many do you have now?

We have under 400 now.

You're kidding.

Yeah.

I was so curious to ask you like how that went on. I mean, our gym and my neighbor, I live in Woodland Hills. And our gym was closed, and so it just opened. And so I wondered how your businesses were doing.

Yeah, so having locations across the US and Canada— and Canada is still on like full lockdown— and so our 75 locations in Canada have dwindled down to 20-something because they can't even operate at 10% or 25% capacity. And so just now things are opening up. But the point of that is you get to a point in life where you realize like All right, God forbid this franchise fails, completely goes away during this COVID time, I'm still who I am. There was a time in my 30s that my identity was tied to my success, to my business.

Mm-hmm.

And if COVID came in my 30s, I probably would have taken on a very heavy narcotic habit. Instead, during 2020, I just took on a 2 or 3 cocktails a night.

I think a lot of people did though. And you know what, I just— I don't usually talk about my sobriety, and I just shared on social media that I had 5 years of sobriety. And the only reason I did that was because this last year of sobriety during COVID was the hardest, dealing with all the feels, all the change, all the different kinds of busyness and Like having to feel it, like not being able to like, ah, just get a drink or something like that. So I, I shared that, but it was tough.

It was, it was. And, you know, I remember all my buddies would reach out to me in 2017, '18, '19, like, man, you know, you're the CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp. I see you on the Inc. list again, on the entrepreneur list. Look at that, ABC just made you the top 15 franchises. And in 2020, those same buddies were reaching out jokingly, of course, like Hey man, you okay? You gonna eat a bullet? You all right? You know, like nobody wanted my job in 2020. Nobody wanted to be the CEO of a fitness franchise, and I get it. Uh, hell, I didn't want to either. It's just I'm tied to it. I had nowhere to go. And so, you know, the first few months, you kind of— to cope with it, I, I took on a bit of a drinking habit. And then I was like, all right dude, snap out of this. Of course, led my franchisees, and God, I can't say this enough, I've got the most awesome Fit Body Boot Camp franchisees on planet. The years and years and years of instilling a high level of discipline in them, of work ethic in them, and just choosing the right franchisees to be in business with. We turned the corner within 72 hours. We locked down all the locations. We went to online coaching and launched a new online coaching program to start generating new leads and clients for them.

Wait, how fast did you do this?

72 hours.

Wow.

So talk about the team of Just amazing, amazing people.

Well, to be resilient though, I think you have to be— have a brilliant mind like you. You have to have a great leader like you, you are, and you have to be creative. I can't tell you how many of my friends that were just like, well, I'm just going to wait until the gym opens up again. And I'm like, dude, you can't wait. You got to do something now.

See, this, this is where I believe being a former communist benefited me.

Because you got that immigrant edge, too.

The immigrant edge, and then the paranoia. You could never trust the communist government. My dad instilled that in me. And so he just pretty much instilled you could never trust— so my dad, true story, he lives in Anaheim right now. Hopefully people don't go looking for his address. He's got 3 Folgers coffee jars full of money buried in his backyard. Me and my brother know where they're buried and under what rock, because he doesn't— he still doesn't trust the system, the government.

Do you know my dad texted me this morning? I will show you the text when we're done. He's got money hidden. I'm the only person— oh no, everybody knows now. Everybody knows now.

You and me and everyone else.

No, but I mean, he doesn't trust the government, doesn't trust anybody. And yeah.

And so I went into it with that mindset. So remember what we knew in March of 2020 was that this virus is very contagious, that it's very deadly. And I felt that as the CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp, it was my duty and obligation on March 16th to ask all Fit Body Boot Camp locations to shut their doors and help flatten the curve. That was what we kept hearing, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I said, guys, 2 weeks to 4 weeks tops. This is what we're hearing. You guys are hearing it on the news. But in the meantime, we're gonna— in 72 hours, we're gonna create an online coaching platform In case this should go on longer. Thank God we did, because as we know now, it went on. It's gone near 12 months. 12 months. Now, there was a little 3-week period here in most states that things opened up in June.

Yeah.

Only to lock down again, which was just like a slap to everybody's face. And I believe restaurants and gyms felt it the most.

Yeah.

But all that said, thank God for that high level of paranoia that I have.

Yeah.

Then I said, yeah, well, just to be on the safe side, we're going to create an online coaching system in case the doors are shut for a long time. And that saved our bacon.

I think being resourceful from the time you were born, basically, really helped give you that edge that you need to be a successful business person because you're always thinking, okay, well, this doesn't work. Maybe I can go around this way and figure it out another way. I mean, you're very resourceful. So I think that all what you learned as a kid really helped you. I love how you say it's that immigrant edge and that paranoia has served you well and it's given you some superpowers.

Yeah, yeah, and I'm very thankful for it. I mean, I would never wish for anyone to experience what I experienced as a kid. I think there's certainly better ways to learn resourcefulness and resiliency, but that's how I learned it and I'm grateful for it.

Yeah, yeah. My youngest daughter learns it. She's a horseback rider, so she learns it on her horse by being thrown off and getting back on by the, you know, horse being stubborn. So I would rather kids learn it that way than the way that I learned it as well. But so you've been able to, you know, are you starting to travel again with speaking engagements yet?

Yes, interestingly enough, it's like Texas, Florida, Arizona. Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Vegas. And Vegas. So it's all the states that we all know that's starting to open up.

Yeah.

And it feels good. I got to be honest with you, after, you know, not speak— well, the Zoom talks don't count.

I know, it's not the same. It's not the same.

I feed off the energy. I know you do as well.

I do too.

I like the interaction with people. And so for me, the first talk I did after COVID ended, or at least In front of real humans. I was a bit nervous. I was a little nervous.

I was a little, uh, well, this is my second interview in person in over a year, and I have not been around cameras like this. And so when we opened, I was like, uh, hi. Because, you know, when you're used to being in front of like real cameras a lot and on stage a lot, you can just go with it. But I'm like, oh, I've been so excited about getting to see you in person. So this is like, feels like a trip to Disneyland. And we didn't even get into your story about working at Disneyland. Y'all gotta, y'all gotta read his book.

You know, I don't know if you know this. I don't know if I shared this in the book, but I am famous for shutting down the Jungle Cruise ride for 2 days because I—

What did you do?

Yeah. So if you just imagine, I got to share this with your audience. So next time you're at Disneyland or Disney World, they will know what I'm talking about. So imagine Main Street USA in Disneyland. Main Street USA, Carnation Cafe, as you're headed towards the castle, is on the left-hand side about halfway up the street. What most people don't know is because whatever the land is where Jungle Cruise is—

Adventureland.

Adventureland is behind, is to the left of Main Street. There's a large river, man-made river, where they park the Jungle Cruise boats one after another in 2 rows. I didn't know those things were on a track, which kind of makes sense because when the guy's like driving through the jungle, uh, he's looking at the audience and just randomly steering the boat.

Yeah.

And it's not crashing into anything. So the dots connected after, but I was a busboy at Carnation Cafe Restaurant. Right behind the back doors, right out the back doors, was that Jungle Cruise River where these boats were parked. And it was 2 in the morning. I had a group of really slow busboys with me working. And so my strategy was like, I did the math. If we clean, try and wash all these 19 bus tubs with like pots and pans and ladles and spoons in it, we're not gonna get out of here till 5 in the morning. And I had places to go. And, uh, as in one of the guys rented a hotel room, we're having a hotel room hotel party anyway. So I had nowhere really to go other than—

You had places to be.

I'm gonna drink heavily at 2 in the morning and I didn't want to miss it. So my plan was I'm gonna take all these bus tubs, I'm gonna dump them into the river. What I didn't know, that because they're on a track, that the first boat in the morning when they tried to drive it out, it got derailed and it backed up all the boats. And so when I got to work that next afternoon, they have divers in like full-on wetsuit gear coming out with pots and pans and ladles. And I'm like, wow, what happened there?

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, so it was, uh, it was unfortunate because for 2 days They had to take time to retract the boats, but that's my claim to fame.

Oh my goodness. You have some incredible stories from Disneyland though, and you take every experience and turn it into a real learning experience. Like you made games out of how fast could you bust those tables, how— and you learned how— one of the things you learned is how not to be a leader.

Yes.

From Disneyland. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I had Kathy as a shift supervisor and Doug as another shift supervisor. Doug was this Southern guy, big giant man, about 6'3, maybe 280 pounds, and our shift leads. So by this point, I was a dinner cook now. I was no longer a busboy. I was a dinner cook. And when Main Street USA is packed, I mean, it is packed. People are waiting for the electrical parade. Every night, Carnation Cafe would become the world's busiest restaurant.

Wow.

The world's busiest restaurant, statistically speaking. So the tickets are just popping out, and we're supposed to cook like dozens of steaks and hundreds of hamburgers, etc. And so Doug would come in in his big bellowing Southern voice, and he'd flip his tie over his shoulder and go, what can I do to help you boys? And he'd jump right in and make salads or sandwiches or take the grill. Kathy would come in, on the other hand, and go like— she'd— so we have to take temperatures of everything every hour, make sure everything's the right temperature, and she'd look at the temperature log and see that We're 2 hours behind. We haven't— and so she would just come up to me as the dinner cook, as I'm like cooking up a storm here, and she would just start speaking to the side of my face. Well, I see the temperatures haven't been taken for the last 2 hours, and we don't know if the health department's gonna randomly come in tonight, right now, this very moment. And I remember thinking like, could you be more like Doug and less like yourself right now?

Mm-hmm.

And so it was a really great experience, and She would just deflate morale, whereas Doug would come in and you wouldn't even want to go on your break because he would flip his tie over his shoulder and he would cook, and you just want to be next to him and you don't want to let him down. And you're like, Doug, I'm going to skip my break until the electrical parade is over. We're good, man. Um, so, so what a great experience that I got to take that. And when I started my own business here, I was like, you know what, I've got people to lead, and I could either be like Doug or I could be like Kathy.

Mm-hmm.

So I choose to be like Doug.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, we got just— can I just ask a couple more questions?

Yes.

I appreciate your time. I mean, there's so much about your story that is so interesting, but you speak a lot on how to build confidence. And I know that's one of the questions I get a lot is about confidence, especially from, from people when they see all my scars, they're like, how did you start showing your scars? Or, you know, or how did you learn to be as How did you become a speaker and go on stages? Or, you know, how did you meet Bedros? You know, so, so I would love for you to break down how to be confident because I just listened to one of your podcast episodes. Your podcast is amazing, by the way. And you talk about true confidence versus like fake it till you make it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not a big believer in the whole fake it till you make it because that's like when guys go like, man, I want to be alpha. fake giant gold watches and go lease a Lamborghini, yet they can't even make eye contact with you because they haven't done anything of substance in life. They're leasing. Yeah, if you got good credit, you can put $1,000 down and pay $1,200 a month, and you can lease a Lamborghini, and you can get a big giant fossil watch that from afar looks like all this blingage, etc. And so fake confidence is not something that I think people to try and strive for. And that's not even alpha in terms of guys, but real confidence.

It's like fake followers, fake on social. How can you feel good?

It's, you know, and that's exactly it. It's, you know, inside. And so confidence is a byproduct of credibility. So the higher the credibility you have with yourself, the higher the confidence you have. So what's the easiest way to build credibility tomorrow morning? Well, I'm gonna set my alarm for 5:30 AM. tonight when I go to bed. At 5:30 AM, the alarm's gonna go off tomorrow. If I hit the snooze button, I've lost credibility with myself, right? Because I made a promise to myself that I'm gonna wake up at 5:30, then I hit the snooze button.

Yeah.

And so if I lose credibility, I no longer trust myself. If I don't trust myself, I've got no credibility, I've got no confidence. If I don't hit the snooze button and I spring out of bed, then I've got a W, I've got a win. Then the next win after that is to drink my 30 ounces of water that's sitting right there on my nightstand. Now I've got another win. And then it's to send out 3 gratitude text messages to people I love and cherish and value in my life who had just poured into me over time. 3 random people. And if I just send out 2 instead of 3, well, that's a loss, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so as I go through my day stacking those little wins, when it's time to negotiate with Saudi Arabia about opening 26 Fit Body Boot Camps there, uh, when this whole COVID thing ends, then guess what? I'm gonna not miss the call by accident. I'm gonna show up as my best self. I'm gonna have all these days of credibility under my belt. I'm gonna win that as well.

Mm-hmm.

And so confidence is a byproduct of stacking wins, little wins, big wins, but it's really a byproduct of keeping a promise to yourself.

Mm-hmm.

And if you break the promises to yourself, then you lose credibility, you lose confidence. You keep those promises, you gain confidence. It's, it's It's simple, but it's not easy. It's simple to understand, but in that moment when you're like, oh, just 10 more minutes, and you hit snooze, yeah, you just lost credibility.

Yeah. And, you know, I mean, how I was raised is our word is everything. So we do that. It's integrity, integrity and honesty with ourselves and with other people. And that is the most important value to me, is the trust with someone that, and that somebody can count on me. But that starts with counting on yourself. So I love that. Like, simple thing that you can do tomorrow is just set your alarm and actually get out of bed. And it's important to celebrate those wins. So I want to know what's next for you. Saudi Arabia?

Yes. Saudi Arabia and Europe for Fit Body Boot Camp. Yep.

That's amazing.

That's what's next for us in terms of Fit Body Boot Camp. And then in terms for me, I, I feel the gnawing of a second book.

I was just gonna ask you.

But I'm in no rush to do it because it was the most painful— well, other than the year of being CEO of a fitness franchise during COVID the book was the second most painful thing I've done. And so I'm in no rush, but I do feel the birthing of a book coming within.

I feel you. I feel like it's like, um, Kind of like childbirth, actually. It takes a little while to forget how hard it was and painful. And I feel that coming on in me too, like maybe there's another book. But thank you for sharing that that was painful and hard to write because I hear people that write a book and they're like, oh, it just poured out of me. It was blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, I, I didn't even own a computer when I wrote my book.

I know.

I handwrote my whole book and then bought a computer. So I was just I was saying to your amazing team, by the way, I was like, all this technology and everything, it's all kind of new to me. So thank you for doing this.

Thank you for coming out.

Yeah, the book, it's a lot.

It is.

But yours is, you know what, it's a lot when it's well done and yours is really well done.

I appreciate that.

I've got, you know, highlights in it, but I, let me ask you one more question. The Audible book, was that hard for you to do?

Yes. In In fact, Joan had booked— so the publisher said, hey, here's 3 places where you guys can go to record— Beiderus can go to record the audiobook. I looked for voiceover people left and right to do it for me, but I kept hearing from people when I teased the idea that I'm writing a book, like, Beiderus, we hope you're going to do the voiceover. We need to hear it in your voice. They were passionate. I was like, shit.

Mm-hmm.

All right, so I said, Joan, if the publisher says I need 2 days, just book 4 days because Okay, being a foreigner—

That's smart that you said book 4 days.

Amberly, being a foreigner and when English is your second language, you know, going back to traumatic events, remember like in elementary school when they're like, all right, we're all gonna read a few sentences from this book? So Amberly would read the first 3 sentences, then Ed would read the next 3, and then I would read the next. As soon as it was my turn, I was just choppy and horrible and couldn't pronounce words and would lose my place, and kids would laugh at And so I could read books to myself just fine. The moment I had to read a book out loud, it was over. It was over. And so I—

And it's hard when it's your own book. You would think it would be a little bit easier, but it was so hard.

And the world was going to listen to it, right? So it's not just I'm going to be sitting in a room with a microphone and speaking. It's like the world's going to listen to this. So the guys were such professionals at that sound studio. They said, look, open up to your favorite chapter. And I forget what it was. And I opened up to my favorite— oh, when me and Andrew would go about driving in the GTR. And I read that and they were just— they let me just read for one day. The first day they just sat there and just coached me. All right, read it this way. How did you feel about Andrew? Well, I felt this. Well, why don't you show that emotion in your voice? Oh, okay. By day 3, we actually went back to the first chapter and I started reading and those guys were so good. It made me feel so comfortable.

Gosh, that's amazing. It's so— it makes such a difference in who you have around you. you and who you have helping you through that situation. And I think that's so important why they're like, you're big on masterminds, you're big on, you know, coaching and making sure you've got good people around you because that kind of stuff is hard. I didn't know, I didn't really talk to anyone else who had done their book on Audible. And there was one moment when I was in the recording studio, I was like, okay, I just need to get out of here. And I was like, I need to do some I got to breathe. I got to do pushups. I just got to— he was like looking at me like, okay. So I'm in this tiny little recording studio doing pushups and it worked. I felt better, took some breaths, but it being in that little room for a while, it was hard. But your voice comes through so well.

I'm so happy I did it, to be honest with you.

Oh my gosh. I love it. But y'all have to go out and get this book. book. I'm telling you, man up. I now— I tell myself, woman up, you know, woman up, you know. But in Texas we say get 'er done. That's one of the things I'm big on, mottos too. So another book, I will be looking out for that second book.

You won't be for a while, so I don't want to feel the pressure.

Yes, I know, because it is a lot of pressure. But I'm glad that you've got that stern in you because this one was so incredible. And I hope I get to share the I want to be on stage with you again. That was so much fun. That would be awesome.

Wouldn't it be great if the world opens up where we can just impact people and touch people's lives and not be worried about being in proximity? Because we're humans and we're tribal and we're supposed to hug and we're supposed to connect. And not that sideways hug, but the belly-to-belly hugs where energy is transferred. God dang it, I miss that.

I miss it so much. It's not the same on Zoom. I miss it. I miss hugs. I can't wait to hug people. Like bear hug. I'm gonna make it uncomfortable.

Same. Yeah, like when they try and detach, I'm gonna hold them just for an extra beat.

Yeah, that's me.

Yeah, Jared's laughing.

Well, tell us where we can find you. I mean, if you just Google his name, y'all, you're all over the place. But tell us the best way for people if they want to reach you, if they want to find you.

Best way is just on Instagram. I'm just really fond of Instagram. I think it's a neat platform. So @BedrosKeulian.

Okay. Well, thank you. This has been so much fun. This has been such an honor. Thank you so much for being on.

Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Grit and Grace Podcast. If you like it, please rate it or share it with your friends.

That would help too.

If you're not yet on the newsletter list, Come over to amberlylago.com and jump on it. While you're there, you can grab a free downloadable gratitude journal, and you might just want to check out my book or even check out my monthly motivational membership. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.